In 10.1 there is a menuling (right next to the time) that you can use to dial up
As for the carrier problem, make sure that you dont have "detect carrier" checked. If you do it tried to detect a carrier before dialing.
As for 15-20 tries to connect...cant help you there. Might be your ISP. My ISP gives me weird errors like authentication error from time to time and I do not know why. Usually its fixed by rebooting. Oh well
at least I know how to fix it.